Can't Anybody in There Count?

Not long ago, the Nixon Administration promulgated the notion of the "inoperative statement." Now it has come up with the inoperative audit. One month ago the White House announced that only $39,525 had been paid out of tax revenue to improve President Nixon's home at San Clemente, Calif. The money, the Government spokesman explained, had been spent, for the most part, on security measures requested by the Secret Service. Two and a half weeks later, under pressure from inquiring newsmen, the White House dug further and reported a fresh figure more than ten times higher--$456,352. But West Coast reporters remained skeptical; there still seemed to be improvements that had not been accounted for. Lo and behold, last week the White House came up with a revision of its revision that raised the total public moneys spent on home improvements to $703,367.

A spokesman for the General Services Administration, the Government department that paid the money, said, "We recognize there's quite a gap between the new figure for San Clemente and the figures we gave you before. But we were giving out information piecemeal before, and now we have a very thorough search of the record." Thorough, indeed. The GSA also announced in the same breath that $626,201 in tax money had been spent for equipment and improvements at Nixon's home at Key Biscayne, Fla.

The GSA insists that virtually all the improvements were made in the name of security and had been requested by the Secret Service. If so, one must conclude that the Secret Service has become more concerned with aesthetics and amenities than with the President's safety. Among the more curious items in the San Clemente figures: $8,395 for a bullet-resistant screen separating the swimming pool from the ocean (since there seems to be no real threat from the Pacific, it has been suggested that the real purpose of the screen is to secure the President against shore breezes); $9,910 to "remove dry weeds to eliminate fire hazards"; $1,853 for a flag pole and $476 to paint it; $1,105 to clean the beach; $76,000 for landscaping and lawn sprinklers, and another $25,524 for "landscape maintenance."

Spending tax money for presidential retreats is nothing new--nor is it necessarily wrong. It is an ungenerous country that cannot let its President relax in comfort and safety. F.D.R., for instance, had a retreat called Shangri-La built in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains with $15,000 from the White House budget and with thousands of dollars more that were hidden in various departmental budgets. But that was public property and is now better known as Camp David. Other Presidents have had additions made to their private homes. Until the Nixon Administration, those outlays were made by the Defense Department, which does not disclose the amounts or items and, like the GSA until now, may well have never bothered to add up what may have been spent on J.F.K.'s Hyannis Port home, Ike's Gettysburg farm or L.B.J.'s ranch.

But Nixon's house at San Clemente seems to be a special case. The financing of the purchase itself is still clouded, and the cost and nature of the improvements pose serious questions about what public outlays should properly be and what outlays ought to be Homeowner Nixon's responsibility. There is something vaguely disquieting in a litany of purchases that ranges from such presumably necessary items as $509 for installing security locks to such dubious entries as $6.83 for picture frame supplies and $999 for fertilizer.

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