Court Orders Nixon to Yield Tapes; President Promises to Comply Fully

The court recognized a privilege for matters dealing with diplomatic or national security secrets, but stressed that federal judges may inspect such material in chambers in the course of selecting evidence the prosecutor should have.

No such security claims have been advanced in the current dispute over subpoenaed tapes and documents covering 64 conversations -- most of which implicate the President himself in the Watergate cover-up conspiracy, according to Jaworski -- between June, 1972, and April 26 of this year.

Any national security arguments must now be advanced directly to Judge Sirica, whose May 20 order to produce the material for his inspection was affirmed in all respects.

The judge initially gave St. Clair 11 days to produce the original tapes and documents along with an index showing what portions the White House contended were irrelevant, together with copies of 20 tapes for which Mr. Nixon published edited White House transcripts on April 30.

This screening process may consume most of the seven weeks that remain before the Sept. 9 trial of John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and other Nixon confidants. Evidence introduced at that trial would be available to Congress, too late for the scheduled House impeachment vote but in time for a Senate trial if that occurs.

If White House lawyers disagree with any ruling by Judge Sirica on relevance or executive privilege, they are free to attempt piecemeal delaying appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but the high court indicated that the judge's rulings should not be lightly overturned.

St. Clair in a statement last night at the Western White House in San Clemente indicated that collecting and organizing the tapes for submission to Judge Sirica had not yet begun. In a brief statement he told newsmen the process "will begin forthwith."

During the oral argument July 8, Justice Thurgood Marshall suggested that the process should have begun some time ago. St. Clair said he hadn't started because he did not expect to lose the appeal from Judge Sirica's order.

Among the numerous defeats suffered by Mr. Nixon was the high court's decision to ignore St. Clair's contention that the grand jury had no constitutional right to brand the President an unindicted co-conspirator in the cover-up case.

The court said the validity of Judge Sirica's order could be decided without tackling that question, so it dismissed "as improvidently granted" the writ of review it had issued on that point.

As a result, the White House must go to the U.S. Court of Appeals with its motion to expunge the grand jury's 19-to-0 vote to name the President as a conspirator. The finding will stand in the meantime.

More important than the label of "conspirator" was the indication in Burger's opinion that the evidence at trial may link Mr. Nixon to the alleged conspiracy. If that happens, Mr. Nixon's taped statements are easily admissible as evidence against the defendants. Burger said Judge Sirica did not err in his preliminary, pre-trial estimate that the evidence was admissible and therefore should be produced now.