A GIFT OF LOVE

The wife of the former Nixon aide and Watergate witness for the prosecution tells of her spiritual ordeal and renascence during the months of her husband's imprisonment. ""God knew what He was doing"" when He guided her into a Bible study group, found her the right weekend accommodations, and kept the cellar dry; and somehow she seemed to grow stronger in faith and the ability to cope. This Sanka Christianity may strike even believers as a shade sappy, but there is in Mrs. Magruder's quite obviously sincere recital much that is touching and revealing: Jeb, whose plastic world had melted, crying as she drove away with their four children from the first prison visit; his uncontrolled hysteria after one night in a county jail; the loyalty and resiliency of the young Magruders. There are illuminating glimpses of the ""better"" prisons--in particular, a picnic to which the poor came with sandwiches, the OC (organized crime) families with steaks, the white-collar crime group with barbecues and wives in pants suits. The smaller prison to which Magruder was transferred specialized in OC convicts; some had Gucci shoes in the closets, prepared their own gourmet meals, and ate hurriedly, often standing up. And Mrs. Magruder has her own revelations--that there are on this earth lonely ones who know they don't matter to the system; there are poor folk who are oppressed because they don't know how to use their rights; and we are all God's creatures. Admirable, although there are those who might feel that true religion includes a long hard look at one's own ethical conduct--a process Mrs. Magruder may have begun.