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The second subpoena demanded the President's daily schedules from April to July 1972, when the break-in was planned and executed; from February to April 1973, when the cover-up was unraveling; from July 12 to July 31, 1973, when it was disclosed that presidential conversations were taped; and from October 1973, when Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Doar said the committee needed the logs to determine whether there were other conversations relevant to Watergate that should be requested. Nixon seemed unlikely to comply with the subpoenas; the deadlines are this Wednesday. St. Clair once more contended that Nixon's already released transcripts provided all the evidence needed to establish his role in Watergate.
Many constitutional experts believe that Nixon has no right to refuse the Judiciary Committee's subpoenas. In an article published by the Yale Law Journal last week, Harvard Law Fellow Raoul Berger called the President's claim that the material is protected by Executive privilege an "extraordinary spectacle ... [that] stands history on its head." He also attacked St. Clair's argument to the Judiciary Committee that Nixon can be impeached only for indictable offenses. Berger called it "a pastiche of selected snippets and half-truths, exhibiting a resolute disregard of adverse facts." He went on to say that both Nixon and St. Clair disregard the fact that the framers of the Constitution saw impeachment as an exception to the doctrine of separation of powers and carefully made impeachment "both limited and noncriminal." Of St. Clair, Berger concluded: "He is not so much engaged in honest reconstruction of history as in propaganda whose sole purpose is to influence public opinion."
Timetable for Trial. In another dispute over Watergate evidence, Federal Judge John J. Sirica took under advisement White House lawyers' pleas against surrendering 64 presidential tapes to Prosecutor Jaworski. The President contends that Jaworski has not demonstrated that he needs the material. Among the tapes sought are three of conversations between Nixon and former Special Counsel Charles Colson on June 20, 1972, just three days after the Watergate breakin. The prosecutors hope that tapes of the conversations will shed some light on two other presidential conversations held the same day: one with former Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, which was partially obliterated by an 18½-minute mysterious buzz; the other with former Attorney General and Campaign Director John Mitchell, which presidential aides claim was never taped. The prosecutors believe the tapes may also explain why Nixon could not shake the fear, as he put it on April 15, 1973, that Colson was "up to his navel" in the Watergate affair. Colson has specifically denied any involvement in the breakin.