In the summer of 1972, as the class of '47 celebrated its 25th reunion, Richard G. Kleindienst '47 was a busy man.

As deputy attorney general of the United States, Kleindienst was poised to become the nation's next attorney general and was quickly becoming disturbed by the evolving story of a botched robbery at the Democratic National Committee.

Today, Kleindienst lives his life at a slower pace.

Semi-retired and holding the upper hand in a battle against lung cancer, he has returned to the northern Arizona mountains where he was born and raised.

Thousands of miles away from the ambitious presidential aides and nosy reporters of the nation's capital, he now spends his time as legal counsel for Hassayampa, a high-altitude residential development recently built around a signature golf course that is dotted with Ponderossa pines.

Kleindienst's stalwart conservative ideals, which landed him in the Nixon administration, are rooted in a background that begins with his grandfather.

In his memoir, Justice: the Memoirs, of Attorney General Richard Kleindienst (1985), Kleindienst writes that, "Granddad...brought to Arizona the deep conviction that the preservation of freedom in America depended solely upon the Republican Party."

Kleindiest spent the first 25 years of his life after Harvard fighting for these ideals. And when he reached the attorney general's office at age 49, it would have seemed to be the ultimate tribute to his work.

But on June 17, 1972, five days after he was sworn in, the Watergate break-in was discovered and the World War II veteran began to spending the bulk of his time dealing with a morass of emerging cover-ups.

Asked if he was disappointed to have reached the apex of his career and found himself forced to step down, Kleindienst laughs and is terse.

"Of course," he said in a recent interview. "I was deeply disappointed and I still am."

Kleindienst says that as deputy attorney general, his initial Nixon administration appointment,he had a promising agenda of two or three programs that were quickly put on the back-burner.

"With Watergate," he says, "those things just went down the river."

A consummate patriot, however, Kleindienst is convinced that the Watergate ordeal reflects positively upon American democracy.

"In my opinion the Constitution was impeccable during the whole process," Kleindienst says.