THE PRESIDENCY by HUGH SIDEY: A Watergate by the Sea?

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They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

−Attributed to Talleyrand, speaking of the Bourbons

Since the Nixon Administration resembles a monarchy in so many other ways, perhaps it is only natural that the above quote so aptly describes the way the White House is now answering questions about how the President acquired his luxurious San Clemente home.

Far from diminishing the suspicion that there was something funny in the deal, Nixon and his agents kindle it. Rather than taking even a quick look back over their disastrous Watergate scenario, they have walked onstage with the same old script. In short, they act guilty whether they are or not.

The latest episode occurred last week in the San Clemente Inn. Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, in his dark business suit and button-down attitude, strode into the dim chamber with all of his preWatergate assurance on display.

After a full year of the grossest kind of misguidance from this man, his presence triggers in reporters a salivation of distrust. He is a symbol of the Watergate infamy. He is the mouthpiece who in a singular exercise of political absolution dismissed official lying by declaring statements "inoperative." Whether he was an innocent victim of Watergate, as John Dean asserted, seems almost irrelevant. His presence on the San Clemente podium suggests that the White House considers the new issue so touchy it is sending out its top deceiver. Get ready to be misinformed.

Ziegler began casually enough with an account of the President busy in his office, conferring with aides, signing bills, making ambassadorial appointments. Then came the message, one of those carefully rehearsed explosions of indignation. The story in the Los Angeles Times that Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox had begun an inquiry into the purchase of the San Clemente home was denied "categorically," a favorite term from the Watergate manual. The President was "appalled," reported Ziegler. That has been his condition for months. The story in the newspaper, continued the press secretary, was "malicious, ill-founded and scurrilous." Those are all terms used repeatedly, with that exquisite Ziegler rote, in the Watergate coverup. In a very basic Pavlovian sense, they were signals to anyone listening that there must be something to the story and the White House must again be frightened. Tentative conclusion: another Watergate.