The Hearings Resume

Off to a faltering start after a seven-week recess, the resumed Watergate hearings presented no startling new evidence of outrageous conduct in the 1972 presidential campaign. But, through two witnesses whose personalities, perspectives and fortunes offered a fascinating contrast, they did provide an intriguing dialogue on political ethics. The two:

— E. Howard Hunt, 54, a career Government spy and mystery novelist, now imprisoned for the Watergate wiretapping and burglary. Graceful of language but wan and dispirited, he argued that not even the political raid on Democratic National Headquarters was improper since he believed it to have been authorized by high officials of government; ever loyal, he was merely doing his clandestine duty.

— Patrick J. Buchanan, 34, speechwriter and Special Consultant to President Nixon, who is accused of no wrongdoing at all. Sharp-tongued and aggressive, he lectured the Senators on the prevalence of "hardball" practices in politics, belligerently declining to deplore all but the most blatantly unethical acts.

As the opening witness, Hunt freely admitted carrying out what he described as "seamy activities" for the White House, but he was treated sympathetically by the committee. Far from the swashbuckling character suggested by his wartime OSS and covert CIA exploits, he was a pathetic figure. Thinned by the effects of a stroke suffered in prison, he tired visibly under questioning. He is battling in court to void his guilty plea or, failing that, to get a reduction in his provisional 30-year sentence from Federal Judge John J. Sirica. Apparently unable to follow much of the committee testimony while in prison, he often seemed to know less about the origins of the Watergate wiretapping than any attentive TV follower of Senator Sam Ervin's committee.

Hunt complained mournfully about the injustice of his predicament. "I have been incarcerated for six months," he protested. "For a time I was in solitary confinement. I have been physically attacked and robbed in jail. I have been transferred from place to place, manacled and chained, hand and foot. I am isolated from my four motherless children.* I am faced with an enormous financial burden. I am crushed by the failure of my Government to protect me and my family as it has always done for its clandestine agents."

Hunt's testimony, however, indicated that for a time he had not been abandoned at all by the higher officials who had got him into his trouble. He admitted having paid his former attorney, William Bittman, $156,000 in legal fees, mostly out of funds received from secret sources. Other committee testimony indicated that the funds were raised by Herbert Kalmbach, Nixon's personal attorney. Strangely, none of the Senators, all of whom are lawyers, asked Hunt why Bittman should get such a huge fee in a case in which his client merely pleaded guilty.

No Misgivings. Much of the questioning centered on Hunt's relationship with his original White House sponsor and boss, former Special Counsel Charles W. Colson. Hunt contended that his memory had been refreshed in private questioning by the committee staff and so he could now testify that in January 1972, Colson had indicated an awareness of the political intelligence plan that led to the Watergate breakin.