How are the new elites and multinational corporations attempting to reshape the United States's legal and political system? How have they manipulated foreign policy? What obstacles remain in their path?

A review of the answers to these questions reveals the contours of Nixon's fascist blueprint and underscores the dangers of his remaining in office.

III

LAWLESSNESS is already a Southern rim tradition. And most of the major Watergate conspirators, as well as Nixon's chief backers, began their careers in the Far West or South.

Haldeman and Nixon's appointments secretary Dwight Chapin were Los Angeles advertising men. Ehrlichman was Haldeman's UCLA classmate and a Seattle real estate lawyer--while he wasn't practicing political espionage for Nixon. Barker and Jeb Stuart Magruder are both Southern rim entrepreneurs, and Herbert Kalmbach has become the region's fastest-rising lawyer.

Among the least savory cowboys is Nixon's closest comrade-in-arms, C. G. "Bebe" Rebozo, a Florida real estate speculator whose associates reportedly included Bernard Barker.

Rebozo's career was probed in a Fall 1971 News day expose. Among his less noble accomplishments are selling stolen stocks, wringing special favors from the U.S. Small Business Administration, delivering building contracts to mobsters, and reportedly capitalizing on government connections to benefit from real estate deals.

In "The World Behind Watergate," Kirkpatrick Sale sums up the cowboys' attitude toward law:

Whether because of the newness of their position, their frontier heritage, or their lack of old-school ties, they tend to be without particular concerns about the niceties of business ethics and morals, and therefore to be connected more than earlier money would have thought with shady speculations, political influence-peddling, corrupt unions, and even organized crime.

But Sale neglects another source of Southern rim "lawlessness": Men dealing in crucial industries with limited markets or restricted supplies--as in oil, real estate, and defense contracting--require close ties to government and large-scale planning to insure unhindered growth, favorable markets, and the safety of their collusion. Especially in prosperous times, when the public cares little about business ethics, the7The Watergate Bad Guys The Watergate plotters included Southern rim entrepreneurs and conservative-lawyer-opportunists: H.R. HALDEMAN (left) was a Los Angeles advertising man; former presidential counsel JOHN W. DEAN III (middle) was fired from his Washington law firm for secretly aiding a client's rival in a television licensing case. JOHN EHRLICHMAN (right) saw both kinds of action: During the sixties, he alternated real estate law practice in the Far West with sometimes-clandestine campaign operations for Nixon.