Where the Cox Probe Left Off

In the five months that he served as special Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox more than made good on his promise to follow any trail, "wherever that trail may lead," in his investigation. Cox and his 80-man legal staff brought criminal charges in 14 cases, and at the time of his ouster they were investigating literally dozens of criminal allegations extending far beyond the Watergate breakin. Indeed, it was the unfettered scope of Cox's inquiries that led Nixon to the angry decision that he had to go.

TIME has learned that the White House seemed especially upset about Cox's determination to pursue these areas of investigation:

> The "Town House Project," which raised up to $4,000,000 in campaign funds for Nixon-favored congressional and gubernatorial candidates in the 1970 election. The operation was so named because it was headquartered in the basement of a private town house four blocks from the White House. Directed by former White House Employee Jack Gleason, the effort was conducted before present campaign-financing laws became effective, and no accounting of it has ever been made public. The story of how the money was raised and what became of it is presumably still contained in a satchel of reports that Gleason delivered to former White House Counsel Charles Colson in December 1970. Cox's investigators believed that the Town House operation is potentially one of the most explosive scandals in Washington, but White House lawyers refused to provide information about it on the ground that Cox had no claim to evidence bearing on any campaign except that of 1972. (To invalidate that contention, Cox three weeks ago charged a Democratic donor to Hubert Humphrey's 1968 campaign with making an illegal contribution.)

> The handling of anti-Nixon demonstrators at 1972 rallies attended by the President in Illinois and Tennessee, the latter featuring Billy Graham as a booster. Some of the activists, as well as witnesses, have accused Secret Service agents and White House advance men of interfering with the civil rights of peaceful protesters.

> Exploits of the White House "plumbers" that have not yet come fully to light. The Administration declined to cooperate with parts of such an investigation, claiming that some of the team's activities involved the "national security."

> The White House-authorized campaign to tap the telephones of certain Administration aides and outside newsmen.

In addition to these investigative avenues specifically challenged by the Administration, the Cox task force was looking into a wide variety of other reported criminal acts. They range from "dirty tricks" allegedly committed in behalf of candidates of both parties to various allegations of perjury. Yet the central thrust seems directed at the all but endless amounts of cash raised by Nixon's moneymen during the last three biennial elections--some $60 million for the 1972 race alone.

The pair of $50,000 cash gifts from Billionaire Howard Hughes to Nixon's pal Charles G. ("Bebe") Rebozo in 1969-70 is one of the strangest cases. Though the funds were allegedly for campaign purposes, Rebozo has testified that he never turned them over to anyone's campaign and in fact did not even tell Nixon of the gifts' existence. At his press conference last week, the President commended Rebozo for his handling of the cash, claiming that it was never used because 1) the donation was thought to be potentially embarrassing to Nixon in the light of an internal struggle in the Hughes business empire, and 2) as a candidate, Nixon never wanted to know the identity of his contributors until after the election was over.

Still, investigators for both the Cox staff and the Senate Watergate committee are understandably curious as to why Rebozo would allow $100,000 to languish for three years in a safe-deposit box in his Key Biscayne bank, as he claims, where he could not even collect interest on it. Moreover, one of the payments was made on the very day that Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp, apparently as a favor to the President, were concluding a deal to buy a chunk of Nixon's property in San Clemente.

The "Public Institute" affair is another odd saga involving surplus funds from Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. Some $500,000 was placed for a time in bank accounts opened in the name of the otherwise nonexistent institute and maintained by Herbert Kalmbach, then the President's personal attorney and the man who handled the purchase of Nixon's California estate. Kalmbach has insisted that "not a dime of campaign money went into San Clemente," and he has agreed to testify at length about how the funds were used. Carmine Bellino, a top investigator for the Senate Watergate committee has also been looking into the institute deposits. Beyond that, TIME has learned that Bellino and two accountants recently spent a week in Los Angeles delving into records of a "nonprofit educational foundation" suspected of concealing gifts to Nixon, then departed abruptly for Miami. Sources close to the investigation report that Cox became privy to the results of their work in the days just before his ouster.

Only a portion of the list of illegal corporate contributors to Nixon's 1972 campaign has been made public. So far three companies--Goodyear Tire & Rubber, 3M and American Airlines--have been fined for unlawfully dipping into corporate funds for gifts to the President's re-election effort. Cox's investigators claimed that they were looking into possible violations by two dozen other firms and labor unions.

Alarming Tips. In pursuing this plethora of leads, Cox's staff had subpoenaed masses of bank records and deployed several dozen accountants from the IRS and the FBI to examine them. Members of the special prosecuting team suspect that the White House received tips from one of the federal agencies and became alarmed at the burgeoning scope of Cox's investigation. In addition, Administration officials may have disliked Cox's success in persuading former presidential aides--so far John Dean, Jeb Magruder and Fred LaRue--to agree to testify for the prosecution in return for leniency in their own cases. Members of the task force were reportedly pressuring John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, two of Nixon's highest-ranking aides until the scandal blew, to make some sort of deal.

The 80-man legal task force assembled by Cox will apparently remain intact for the time being. Though some of the younger attorneys threatened to resign as a protest against Cox's firing, Assistant Special Prosecutor James McBride and other top Cox assistants persuaded them that the momentum of the fast-spreading Watergate investigation would be slowed for months without their expertise. Criminal Division Chief Henry Petersen, who is mightily distrusted by many Cox associates because of his solicitous attention to Administration feelings during the original Watergate investigation, held a tense meeting with members of the staff. As their temporary boss, he urged them to stay on. "Stay, that's what we want," said Petersen. "That's definite. We aren't going to fire a single one."

Yet leaders of the task force plan to seek quick assurance that Petersen--or any new special prosecutor--is genuinely determined to follow any trail. Within the next two weeks, one senior attorney says privately, the task force will "send a crunch decision" to Petersen or whoever is the new special prosecutor that Nixon has promised to name this week. They intend to hand up evidence involving a "sensitive area" that will force the new prosecutor to make good or else. If whoever is in charge by then fails that test, mass resignations will surely follow.

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