Nixon plans to block papers

Press, 5 February 1987, Page 26

Nixon plans to block papers

NZPA-AP Washington Richard Nixon plans to use Presidential privilege to block the scheduled May release of his Watergate papers, according to his lawyers.

The National Archives gave a 90-day notice that it intends to allow the public to see iy 2 million of the documents seized when Mr Nixon resigned as President on August 9, 1974. Those documents include the sensitive Watergate files. A lawyer, Herbert Miller, has told a Federal judge that Mr Nixon would lodge a claim of Presidential privilege and would possibly file a lawsuit.

A Nixon lawsuit would be another in a long string of legal actions that have

blocked the release of documents and hundreds of hours of tape recordings.

Congress ordered the documents released more than 12 years ago, but only two batches of material have been released so far by the archives. Neither involved sensitive documents. In 1986, the Justice Department made a ruling that would force the archives to accept automatically every claim of executive privilege asserted by Mr Nixon against the release of files.

Mr Miller has appeared before District Judge George Revercomb to argue against an attempt by a, public interest group to invalidate that ruling.