IN RECENT WEEKS a few misguided lunatics have suggested that the President's handling of the Watergate bugging left something to be desired. Those are the same people, of course, who needlessly prolonged the Vietnam war by encouraging the enemy, and most Americans know it. With very few exceptions -- about a third of the readership of The New York Daily News, some grizzled Democratic pros to whom anything Republican is anathema, a few militant blacks left over from the sixties, maybe a couple of housewives who never really warmed up to the President, and most of the guys in the union halls of Muncie, Indiana -- the American people believe, and want to believe, that the President knew nothing about Watergate. And with that in mind, the President has courageously taken bold, forthright action to find those few whose passionate love for America and hatred for those who would destroy it carried them into actions that were illegal, unwise, and in some cases even unproductive.

But so far, the President's efforts have been misdirected. The American people will not settle for a man like Jeb Stuart Magruder, who radiates beleaguered honesty from every pore. The American people want a Harvard dean. The self-styled progressives who take their vacations in Hanoi have never understood this, and they never will. But the American people will not be duped. These are the facts:

I. In August, John T. Dunlop was dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. No one cared about Watergate. Today, Dunlop is holding the line on hamburger for the President, and the newspapers have more on Watergate every day.

II. From his early investigative days to the present, the President's strength has been based in Middle America, not in Cambridge. But with the exception of Secretary Brennan, who, impartial observers acknowledge, embodies the finest traditions of American labor with his impassioned defense of free speech, his pearl-handled Derringer and his heroic oppostion to imperialistic wars, the President's recent appointments have been Harvard men -- Richardson, Weinberger, and most recently Dunlop. Few of these pointy-headed intellectuals can park a bicycle straight, and most if not all of them put on their pants one leg at a time.

III. Of all these Harvard appointments, probably the best known is Henry Kissinger, who called for compassion last week. Kissinger is a German by ancestry and conviction. So are John Erlichman and H.R. Haldeman, who have been linked to Watergate.

IV. Finally, who would be more likely to betray the President's trust: a simple, barefoot Wall Street lawyer like John. N. Mitchell, or a slippery Harvard dean like Dunlop?

THE SENATE is very good at bailing out Hanoi, but it is apparently unable or unwilling to look into corruption at home. Under such circumstances, the President must put the investigation back in the hands of John W. Dean III, the one man who knows the case inside and out, having served simultaneously as judge, prosecuting attorney, and defendant. One can imagine the interrogation.

--Tell me, Mr. Dunlop, am I not correct in saying that while ostensibly working for the President here in Washington, you have been helping out at Harvard on the sly?

--I choose not to regard it in quite that light, sir.

--When I want your opinion of this chamber's illumination system, Mr. Dunlop I shall certainly ask for it. Is it not also true that it is only since you instituted this highly questionable procedure that the Watergate case has become Big News? No, don't answer that, Mr. Dunlop. Is it not also true that Harvard's vacation this year failed to coincide with Easter Sunday?

--Derek Bok is less orthodox than his predecessor, sir. He believes in Easter without the Passion. Why, there were classes on Good Friday, Ash Monday, and Passover.

--I wouldn't sneer at Good Friday, Ash Monday, and Passover, Mr. Dunlop. You may not know this, but many fine Catholics voted for the President, and Sammy Davis Jr. is Jewish. Did you know that, Dunlop?

--I've heard rumors, sir.

--You think you're cute, don't you, Dunlop? Did Derek Bok go to church on Easter, Dunlop? Or on Good Griday, Ash Monday, and Passover? A Freedom Seder, perhaps? Or a midnight mass celebrated by a homosexual defrocked Jesuit married to a former nun? Dunlop, I'm afraid you're really up shit creek without a paddle. And you can tell your friends in Hanoi that the President is a merciful man, but his mercies do not endure forever.

--I've heard rumors of that, too, sir.

It's possible, of course, that Henry Kissinger would make a better scapegoat, if only because his lecherous propensities are better known. It may be significant that the President reportedly asked Secretary of State William P. Rogers, who has done nothing for the last six years, and done it very well, to investigate Watergate. But Kissinger's services to world peace are so great that he deserves diplomatic immunity. Even his detractors are hard pressed to ignore the way Laos and Vietnam are basking in the sunshine of peace since the ceasefire. And how happily the little Khmer children frolic on the ruins of their outmoded and unnecessary air-raid shelters! Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.