By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 9, 1997; Page A17

More Nixon White House tapes will be made public next month, but they're not going to include some recently declassified "abuse of power" segments.

The head of the National Archives, John W. Carlin, has nothing but praise for what he describes as the Nixon estate's cooperation on the forthcoming release of 154 hours of Cabinet Room conversations on Oct. 16. In an internal memo to Archives officials, Carlin, who has been pressing to create a full-fledged presidential library in California for the late Richard M. Nixon, said the release of the Cabinet Room conversations is "noteworthy" in large part because after many years of litigation, "the Nixon estate is working with us to facilitate opening tapes to the public."

What Carlin didn't mention, critics point out, is the status of close to 200 scandal-tinged segments that were originally withheld from the public on national security grounds when Nixon's "abuse of governmental power" tapes were released last year.

According to informed sources, archivists in charge of Nixon's records at the National Archives facility in College Park, Md., had been planning to release these additional "abuse of power" segments, totaling about one hour, at the same time as the Cabinet Room conversations. Now, as a result of a legal reading by the Nixon estate, it appears it could take as much as four to five years before the snippets can all be made public.

"The declassification review is done," said University of Wisconsin historian Stanley Kutler, one of those who asked that the still-censored portions be made public. Archivists in charge of Nixon's records at College Park processed them under an executive order that President Clinton issued in 1995 to pare down the mountains of secrets in government files.

Another source, who asked not to be named, suggested that release is being delayed to keep the new "abuse of power" sections from overshadowing the Cabinet Room releases.

Asked about the now declassified segments of the "abuse of power" tapes, Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said she could not "predict when we are going to be able to open" them. She said the Nixon estate "has not reviewed that material yet."

The Cabinet Room conversations are said to cover a wide variety of domestic and foreign policy topics with participants, including Nixon Cabinet members, White House staffers, members of the National Security Council, congressional leaders, presidential committees and commissions.

In his memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, Carlin said the Nixon estate could have insisted on a laborious review of all the Cabinet Room tapes and lodged "item by item" objections. Instead, he said, the estate "approved the release in its entirety."

A lawyer for the Nixon estate, Scott L. Nelson, made clear yesterday that the estate sees no need to rush on the remaining "abuse of power" segments. The tapes are being released under the terms of an intricate 1996 agreement that settled a lawsuit Kutler brought. While the "abuse of power" tapes were to be released first, a step taken last fall, Nelson said the Cabinet Room tapes are supposed to be next, followed by releases in chronological order of the remaining 2,338 hours over the next several years.

Under that timetable, Nelson argued, any "abuse of power" snippets not released last fall will have to wait for their chronological turn to come up. He said lawyers at the Archives agree with his reading of the settlement pact.

An exception, however, is being made for three tapes on Vietnam POW-MIA matters, which will be released with transcripts Sept. 29. Carlin said in his memo that the Nixon estate agreed to this release "for humanitarian reasons, following a special request from representatives of POW-MIA families."

In fact, those three tapes and transcripts were provided to Nixon's lawyers almost five years ago. They had been sought by a Senate committee investigating POW-MIA issues, but while Nixon responded to questions posed by the committee, lawyers for Nixon denied the committee access to the tapes themselves.

In allowing the POW tapes to be made public now, Nelson said the estate was free to permit "earlier releases" than the agreement provides for. But as for the now declassified "abuse of power" segments, he said, "the estate does not see a reason for deviating from the agreement."