Nixon Lawyers Battle Over Rights to Tapes

Lawyers for Richard Nixon’s estate have accused the Justice Department of filing an appeal that ignores provisions of a 1974 law requiring the return of private conversations on his White House tapes to Nixon or his heirs. At issue are segments on the original tapes, including historically important material, that Congress decreed should be made public. U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson last spring ordered the return of the private portions on the original tapes and any copies. The Justice Department argued in an appeal filed June 23 that the government is obliged to make sure the originals not be “lost or destroyed.” The Nixon reply dismissed this as a “melodramatic assertion,” disputing the government’s claim that editing the original tapes would be “tantamount to destroying them” because of their age and fragility.