The Nation: Loyalty and Leniency

Former Attorney General Richard Kleindienst—the first Cabinet alumnus since 1929 to be convicted of a crime —stood solemnly before Federal Judge George L. Hart Jr. in Washington. In an unusually lenient deal with Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, Kleindienst had been allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of having failed to testify fully at his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now he was to be sentenced.

Kleindienst's attorney pleaded that his client had "a distinguished record in the military and in service to the Government of the United States." The judge noted Kleindienst's fine character, the supporting letters from...