Nixon's Heavyweight

"I've found the man," Richard Nixon told his personal staff in 1967. "I've found the heavyweight!" The President was not, of course, speaking of sport but of politics, and his eye was not on the scales. Two years later, John Mitchell, the Attorney General, is still the heavyweight in Nixon's hierarchy, although to many outsiders he seems more like the heavy. Dour, taciturn, formidably efficient, Mitchell comes across to liberals and civil libertarians as a hard-lining prosecutor with all the human graces of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The tough image is not without foundation. To fight crime in the District of Columbia, Mitchell has advocated preventive detention for some suspects, a formula of uncertain constitutionality that would allow judges to withhold bail from men with criminal records. In the battle against organized crime and subversion, he has contended that the Justice Department should have far greater control than it now has to conduct wiretaps and plant electronic bugs (see THE LAW). To combat the narcotics traffic, he urged adoption last week of a national "no-knock" law that would empower federal agents to break into a suspect's house, unannounced and unidentified, so that the occupants would not have time to destroy evidence.

Rejection on the Hill. In the area of civil rights, a prime concern for any Attorney General, Mitchell, Nixon's campaign director and chief architect of his celebrated Southern strategy, has created the impression that he is trying to placate the white South. He is credited with the recent decision to ease school-desegregation guidelines. He was responsible for drafting the Administration's voting rights bill, which would have done away with the current law in favor of a much weaker measure -- and was unceremoniously rejected by the House Judiciary Committee last week. On Capitol Hill, Mitchell has earned a reputation for being brusque and undiplomatic.

Questioned by TIME, some of the most distinguished law professors were almost entirely negative in their comments on the new Attorney General. "It seems," said Berkeley's Sanford Kadish, "as if the department sees the values of the Bill of Rights as no more than obstacles to be overcome. There seems to be a single-minded effort to cut the crime rate, with little sense of the constraints of the Constitution." Some of Mitchell's critics also complain that his background as a Wall Street expert on municipal bonds--about as far removed from criminal practice or civil rights as a lawyer can get--was not the best preparation for the Government's chief legal office.

The judgments, however, may be unfair and overly hasty. Mitchell's forbidding mien may mislead his critics. While, overall, he seems to have blunted the Government's desire to end segregation--a charge that he vigorously denies--his department has nevertheless brought several important court suits that could hasten integration. Though he publicly approves of wiretapping (his predecessor, Ramsey Clark, was firmly opposed), he claims nonetheless that there are fewer Government wiretaps in operation now than when he took office. "That's typical of him," says an aide. "Other Attorneys General have used taps in practice even while opposing them in principle. Mitchell favors them in principle, but cuts back on their use in practice."

"If you asked Ramsey Clark about wiretapping," says another Mitchell aide, "you'd get an erudite lecture on the concept of personal privacy going back to the Greeks. If you ask Mitchell about wiretapping, he'll more likely say: 'I like it because it's useful in getting a job done.' A lot of people tend to begin with a concept and apply it to a given situation. Mitchell, however, is more inclined to start with a particular situation and work back toward the concept."

After an hour-long meeting with Mitchell last week, four representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union still found that they basically disagreed with Mitchell's views. Yet, to their surprise, they were impressed and encouraged by his willingness to listen and his seeming understanding of the problems of civil liberties. "Pragmatic," the favorite adjective of the Nixon Administration, is the word Mitchell's friends use to describe him.

Trusted Counsel. If Mitchell's position on major issues is still uncertain, his place in the White House hierarchy is not. He is probably the strongest man in the Administration, with great influence on many domestic matters. Very little important goes on in the Administration without Mitchell's getting involved in it. "He is," Nixon told a news conference recently, "my closest adviser on all legal matters and on many others as well." Mitchell had a paramount role in the choice of Warren Burger for Chief Justice, and even now he is helping Nixon find a replacement for former Justice Abe Fortas. Nixon's associates appreciate his icy imperturbability and his efficient mental processes. "When Mitchell speaks in a meeting," says one, "his words carry weight. There aren't many people whose judgment the President will accept without checking into it himself. But he'll take John Mitchell's word at face value."

The Attorney General has another quality that Nixon appreciates--loyalty. Since he was sworn in in January, Mitchell has devoted himself totally to the job and to the President. Leaving his apartment in the Watergate complex before 8 a.m., he strolls into the office before 8:15. Lunch is usually eaten at his desk, and he seldom leaves for home before 7:30 p.m.--and then almost always with two accordion-sided briefcases bulging with work. His only passion is golf, but even that has been almost forgotten for the past year.

His stand on many difficult questions will not really be known until he actually puts his ideas into practice. He gives the appearance of sincerity when he insists, despite considerable adverse evidence, that he will not weaken the federal pressure for racial integration. "Watch what we do instead of listening to what we say," he cryptically told a group of 30 Southern blacks who were protesting the Administration's new school-desegregation guidelines. Though Mitchell's image as the Administration's heavy may prove hard to live down, he may be somewhat miscast in the part. Some of his colleagues even claim that he can crack a joke and a smile--from time to time.

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