Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 32

as Dwight Chapin airline said he is found innocent he will continue to be employed by the company If he is convicted we will request his The White House said it would not comment on the indictment until it knew all the details of the case Chapin was charged with making false statements to the original Watergate grand jury on April 11 this year about the operations of Donald Segretti who is serving a six-month sentence after pleading guilty to violating federal election laws Among other things Chapin was accused of lying in swearing that he gave Segretti no instructions about any political candidate Segretti admitted among other things' that he distributed phony letters during the presidential primary in Florida last-year making aexual accusations against Democratic Sena Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson Informed sources that another former presidential aide Egil (Bud) Krogh Jr was expected to plead guilty today to a federal felony charge involving the 1971 break-in at the offices of Daniel psychiatrist Krogh had been scheduled to go on trial in Washington before US District Judge Gerhard -A Gesell on Dec 11 Combined New Service Washington Dwight I Chapin President former appointments secretary was indicted yesterday on four counts of lying to the Watergate grand jury about in the 1972 campaign The indictment by a special grand jury impaneled in August was given to UJS District Judge John Sirica on behalf of the new special Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski The charges against Chapin who immediately began a leave of absence from his job as a market planning director for United Air Lines are similar to perjury Each count carries on conviction a maximum penalty of $10000 and five years in prison Chapin the 17th person to be charged with criminal violations in Watergate and related scandals is the first to be indicted since Leon Jaworski succeeded Archibald Cox as special prosecutor on Nov 5 Chapin said at his Jiome in Winnetka 111 that he was not about his next move United issued a statement saying Chapin asked for the leave of absence order to' devote all of his energies to defending A spokesman for the on perjury charges brought against him by the Watergate- special prosecution force Die sources' said the perjury charges would be dropped In another development investigative sources said that the White House has sought to block further investigation of the activities of the plumbers unit by telling federal investigators that they might put a foreign life in danger The source said investigators have been warned that they might come across a Central Intelligence Agency operation that involved eavesdropping on Soviet leaden including Communist Party chief Brezhnev The sources said the plumbers who were once headed by Krogh and who burglar- ized the office of psychiatrist woe assigned a secret mission- to trace an unspecified 1971 news leak that threatened to compromise the spy operation Dm White House had no immediate comment on the matter The spy operation although repented by columnist Jack Anderson more than two years ago is apparently still considered sensitive because the agent is not an American and is still living outside the US the sources said Anderson says that he published the story that the Soviets knew that they were being overheard Melvin Laird who returned to the Nixon administration after Watergate depleted the ranks of top White House advisers said yesterday that he planed to leave because his job can be done better by Gerald Ford as vice president think that Gerry Ford should be an active vice said Laird who has been President chief domestic adviser since June I would feel that after a reasonable period 'that Gerry should take over the assignment that had Laird also said he thought that the latest revelations about the Watergate tapes had damaged attempt to recover but that there would be substantial move an effort for the House to impeach him Melvin Laird House Judiciary Backs Ford Ford from the House to the vice presidency would violate a constitutional provision that no member of Congress can be appointed to a civil office when compensation for that office waa increased during the term The same question waa raised in the Senate and Sen Howard Cannon (D-Nev) said his legal advisers told him that the vice presidency was not a civil office and that in any case the pension increase went to Civil Service employes and members of the legislative branch but not to the vice president Washington (UFI) The House Judiciary Committee approved Gerald nomination as vice president yesterday clearing the way for final congressional approval by the House Thursday The Senate approved the Ford nomination Tuesday 92-3 The committee vote was 29-8 and all those voting against Ford were Democrats including Charles Rangel of Manhattan and Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn During debate Holtzman argued that the present Congress voted to increase the vice presidential pension and that moving Gerald Ford That Tape Gap and the Gaps in Testimony President yet Miss Woods says that after die discovered her die only listened to a a few minutes of the buzzing noise and didn't bother to find out how long the noise would continue Consequently the prosecutors have not been able to whether the full 18-minute gap existed on Oct 1 when Miss Woods was transcribing it or whether there was a shorter gap that waa lengthened at a later date Why did the White House wait seven weeks before reporting the gap to Sirica? Lawyers are expected to report quickly any indication that evidence in a case has been damaged or -destroyed yet Sirica and the special prosecutors were not told of the gap until Nov 21 The White House explanation is that Nixon and his -lawyers were not aware that the grand jury wanted the tape of the Haldeman meeting even though name was on the subpena White House counsel Fred Buzhardt has said that the subpena- was ambiguous because it called for the tape of a meeting between Nixon Haldeman and John Ehrlichman top domestic adviser then In fact he said Nixon had Jwo separate meetings one with Ehrlichman that was followed immediately by another with Haldeman Buzhardt told Sirica that because the subpena said instead of he had assumed that only the Ehrlichman meeting was wanted He said it was not until he read the documents more carefully on Nov 14 that he learned that the grand jury also wanted the Haldeman tape and that the court would have to be told about the gap There are many more questions contradictions and gaps in testimony Buzhardt for example under oath that he had made a serious attempt between Nov 14 and Nov 21 to determine what had caused 18-minute gap yet he conceded under questioning that he had never questioned Mian Woods in detail about it Ehrlichman said during the Senate Watergate hearings am surmising and reconstructing because I have no direct notes on this but I am just certain that we did discuss at the June 20 meeting Die White House aummary of the tape of the June 20 meeting between Nixon and Ehrlichman says is no discussion or comment which related either directly or to Watergate And regarding the same tape reel Haldeman has indicated in his notes that he also discussed Watergate with Nixon but apparently all that remains of that discussion is a buzz on the tape NEWSDAY FRIDAY NOVEMBER 30 1973 Continued from Page 3 and questions that arise from the testimony Did Miss failure to mention the gap when she first testified on Noo 8 constitute perjury? When Miss Woods testified the first time die bristled with indignation when asked what precautions she had used to avoid erasing the tapes saying she had my which she said was precaution enough This week when her lawyer carefully asked whether she had to edit add to or alter the tapes she replied that she had not That word crucial because die now maintains that any change she might have caused waa wholly accidental Also she said she had not mentioned the gap in court because she had been told incorrectly that the tape had not been subpenaed Although it is not clear whether Miss Woods told the whole truth it is clear that Sirica believes that she should have mentioned the gap were questioned very carefully and he told her on Monday you not think it was important to mention it?" Is it plausible that she could have accidentally erased a full 18 minutes of tape? Miss Woods has testified that she pushed the wrong button on the Uher Universal 5000 when she tried to stop the tape machine' to answer a telephone Instead of the button which is white she says he pushed the button which is dark gray Then she says she must have accidentally put her Toot on a floor pedal that started the tape moving That two-step process would cause the tape machine to erase but only for as long as die kept her foot on the pedal Miss Woods testified die noticed her error or minutes after it was made and that she does not believe die could poesibly have erased 18 minutes of tape Why she check immediately to determine the duration of the gap? The tapes have been the center of a constitutional crisis since mid-summer and crucial to her Nvw the Impeachment Drive Grows on LI fl Arlie Schardt assistant coordinator of toe American Civil Liberties national drive to impeach toe President will speak on to Impeach toe at 8:30 PM Tuesday in toe Uni-tarian-Urdvenaliet Church in Garden City Members of a group to toe Sixth Congressional District represented by Rep Lester Wolff (D-Ken-aington) met' this week to devise ways of bringing pressure on members of Congress to push for a bill of Several Long Island groups seeking impeachment of President Nixon have stepped up their activities to boost public and congressional support of their efforts Developments in the Long Island movement to impeach the President include: A coalition of impeachment groups in Nassau -and Suffolk Counties plans to hold a rally of more than 4000 persons on Jan 20 the first anniversary of inauguration last year.