WATERGATE: The Trial Begins, Minus Its Star

They were once inseparable, the guardians of the Oval Office in Richard Nixon's law-and-order Administration. Now they sat on the uncomfortable side of the law as defendants in a Washington federal courtroom, separated by a vacant chair—and a frosty silence. For 45 awkward, painful minutes, during a courtroom lull in the jury selection process, John Ehrlichman, baggy-eyed and subdued, bent purposefully over a yellow legal pad. The normally dour H.R. Haldeman, his crew cut turned sleekly long, glanced tentatively at his onetime friend, but got no encouragement. Before stepping out to smoke his pipe, a pale, drawn, considerably older-looking John Mitchell, 61, had sat aloof. Once the nation's chief law enforcer as Attorney General, he now faced criminal charges for the second time.

Far Apart. Certain to become one of the most celebrated trials in U.S. history, the Watergate conspiracy case poignantly dramatized how far this once triumphant trio had fallen—and how far apart they have grown. As Nixon's former chief of staff, Haldeman had a great deal to do with Ehrlichman's emergence as the Administration's domestic-policy boss. Now Ehrlichman's lawyers were expected to claim that Haldeman had worked deviously with Nixon to mislead their client about some of the 45 overt acts cited by the prosecution as part of a conspiracy to "commit offenses against the United States" and to obstruct justice. Mitchell, who never really trusted the palace pair, had learned from the Watergate transcripts that they had plotted with Nixon to make him the scapegoat in the 1972 wiretap-burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters.

The other two defendants seemed almost incidental. Robert Mardian, a top Mitchell aide at both the Justice Department and on Nixon's 1972 re-election committee, warmly shook hands with his former boss. Kenneth W. Parkinson, who had been merely an attorney for the Nixon committee, sat apart from the others on a front-row bench, almost as a spectator. Federal Judge John J. Sirica had separated the case of a sixth defendant, Gordon Strachan, because of legal complications caused by previous grants of immunity to him.

As Ehrlichman entered the courthouse on the first day, he was spat upon by a bearded, heavy-set man who identified himself as a Yippie. Inside the courtroom, everything was orderly as Sirica asked possible jurors, largely black and female, questions proposed by the defense and prosecution attorneys. By week's end Sirica had given preliminary approval to only twelve possible jurors; he would need at least 45 if the opposing attorneys exercise all of the peremptory challenges he has allowed. Many prospective jurors have been dismissed because they would suffer unduly if sequestered from family or business duties for the full length of the trial, which could go on past Christmas.