The Cover-Up Prosecutor

James Neal is "the most vicious prosecutor who ever lived." Neal earned that vitriolic encomium from Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa when he led the Justice Department's effort to convict Hoffa. Now, ten years after Hoffa was found guilty of jury tampering, Neal is the chief trial prosecutor in the Watergate cover-up case. He still treasures the Hoffa remark, but as he prepared to open the Government's case this week, he observed: "I've mellowed a lot since then." A colleague of Neal's agrees --sort of: "He has mellowed a lot. But even mellowed, he's still the most vicious prosecutor who ever lived."

Blocking Back. In fact, Neal softens his bantam-rooster combativeness with an easy Tennessee drawl and a gentle farm-boy manner. Spectators at the cover-up trial will not see the showmanship of an F. Lee Bailey or the suave assurance of a James St. Clair. A former Marine captain and star blocking back at the University of Wyoming, Neal is not even especially eloquent. His strength is the sine qua non of all great trial lawyers: preparation. During the past months, he has often put in ten-hour days with a single Watergate wit ness, then worked on into the night cross-checking each statement. Neal's concentration is total. After he had spent a long session with John Dean one Sunday in September, Mrs. Dean called to ask about her husband's reaction to the pardon announced by President Ford that morning. "What pardon?" asked Neal.

Dean will probably be Neal's first witness, and may be on the stand as long as two weeks. Next will come corroboration from various former Nixon men and, for the finale, the tapes. It is one of the strongest cases, as well as the most important, Neal has ever handled. Ironically, he did his best to avoid the assignment. When Archibald Cox became Watergate special prosecutor, the Harvard professor was worried about his own lack of trial experience. Remembering Neal from their time together under Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Cox telephoned Neal hi Nashville.

When Cox called in May 1973, Neal's private law practice was beginning to prosper. The son of a farm family of modest means, Neal had a comfortable life. His small farm boasted a tennis court, and he had enough leisure to use it and to spend time with his wife and two children. He told Cox no.

Cox persisted, and Neal finally agreed to come to Washington for two weeks just to help get the office started. He stayed nearly five months, after deciding that Dean was the key to the case and that it was critical to get his guilty plea and his cooperation. On Oct. 19 Neal went to court to hear Dean plead, then announced his own resignation. His assistants, Richard Ben-Veniste, 31, and Jill Wine Volner, 31, performed admirably in the many and complex preliminary hearings in John Sirica's courtroom. Still, as a prosecution staffer observed, "for the biggest trial of all, you want someone out there with a little gray in his hair."

This time it was Leon Jaworski who called Nashville. Neal finally caved in. He left his family behind, gave up his private work entirely and rented a tiny efficiency apartment in Washington.

No matter how good his case looks, Neal, 44, has not been lulled. He faces numerous technical problems, among them the possible absence of Richard Nixon; defense lawyers are sure to argue that the former President is vital to their case. Neal must also persuade jurors that Nixon's pardon is no reason to let his former aides go free. The two lesser defendants, former Assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian and C.R.P. Attorney Kenneth Parkinson, will probably claim that they had limited roles and a lack of knowledge about what was really going on. John Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman and John Enrlich-man appear to be in much weaker positions, especially if their attorneys fail to block introduction of the tapes. But at every opportunity their lawyers will seek to provoke the prosecution or Judge Sirica into reversible error. Neal intends to be continually on guard; the most vicious prosecutor who ever lived can do no less.

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