Return of The Watergate Doctrine

Reagan claims Executive privilege to shield his diary

$ No man, not even a President, is above the law -- especially if he possesses evidence that could affect a fellow citizen's fight to stay out of prison. Yet if Presidents can be compelled to disclose confidential conversations with their aides, perhaps as summed up in a diary, wouldn't that chill the candor of future advisers, as well as Presidents? Those conflicting points of law, confronted in the doctrine of Executive privilege during the Watergate scandal, were raised once again last week by Ronald Reagan as he struggled to avoid being pulled into the legal battles over the Iran-contra affair...

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