By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 4, 1997; Page A04

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a request by Richard M. Nixon's estate for quick return of private conversations on his White House tapes.

The July 31 ruling means that government lawyers will have an opportunity for a full-dress hearing of their contentions that a lower court order requiring the return of 820 hours of the president's conversations contradicts a 1974 congressional mandate that they not be lost or destroyed.

Nixon estate lawyers had asked for summary affirmance of the March 31 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Norma Holloway Johnson. She ordered the National Archives, which has custody of the materials, to give Nixon's daughters all "personal or private" conversations on the original tapes "forthwith." A summary affirmance would find the lower court's decision to be constitutionally correct and not meriting further examination.

Justice Department lawyers appealed, saying Johnson's ruling was deeply flawed by a fundamental misreading of the 1974 law Congress passed to keep Nixon from destroying the tapes. The segments at issue are intermingled with historically important material that Archivist John M. Carlin is obligated to preserve under the law. Experts for the Archivist have contended that cutting and splicing the tapes, which total some 3,700 hours, will irreparably damage them.

Nixon lawyers dispute that, saying the law and past court rulings make clear that Nixon or his heirs are entitled to "sole custody and use" of the private portions.

In rejecting the Nixon request for summary affirmance, the appeals court in effect endorsed the government's contention that it would be "utterly inappropriate" to settle the complex issues involved without written briefs and oral argument.

On another front, government sources said, Nixon lawyers are seeking to resume settlement discussions in a lawsuit demanding compensation for the 1974 seizure of Nixon's tapes and papers. A spokeswoman for Carlin, who favors out-of-court settlement, refused to comment.

Under a recent proposal, the government would pay the Nixon estate $26 million, with $8 million to be used to build a new facility, operated by the Archives, on the site of the privately run Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, Calif. The discussions were suspended months ago to await a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service on whether the estate would have to pay inheritance taxes.

Officials from the Archives are scheduled to visit Yorba Linda this week, sources said, perhaps in anticipation of a favorable decision from the IRS. The proposed new facility may not have room to house all 44 million items in the Nixon collection, now kept at the National Archives facility in College Park, Md., and sources said there has been talk of slashing the collection to make it fit.