THE
Michigan Daily
Vol. LXXXIV, No. 15-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Wednesday, May 29, 1974 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
High Ct. asks Nixon
opinion on tape issue
WASHINGTON (A - Tli Su-- - --
preme Court invited the White
House yesterday to express an
opinion over whether the court
should intervene for the first time
in a legal battle over the White x
House Watergate tapes.
James St. Clair, President Nix-
on's attorney, told reporters he
thought the case should first be
decided by the U. S. Court of Ap-
peals. He said he would so advise
the Supreme Court tomorrow. ,.
"CASES THAT are concerned with
constitutional issues ought to he care-
fully considered by the court, andI1
think it would be appropriate thut these
nmatters not be short-cutted" St. Clair9'
said at the federal courthosuse where he Aft,
went on another matter. '.
Bulletin
JERUSALEM (/'-Henry Kissin-
ger flew here from his latest round
At talks with Syrian President
Hfez Assad early today, and after
meeting with government leaders,
an Israeli official indicated that a
disengagement agreement in prin-
ciple had been reached.
When Information Minister Shi-
mon Peres was asked by reporters
if a settlement separating Syrian
and Israeli armies in the Golan
Heights would be announced later
in the day, he replied: "In very
general terms, yes."
The case involves Nixon's refusal to
turn over 64 tapes subpoenaed by Spe-
cial Prosecutor Leon Jaworski.
A U. S. District Court ruled May 20
that Nixon must surrender the tapes. St.
Clair asked the U. S. Court of Appeals
last Friday to overturn the ruling.
Then, on the same day, Jaworski ask-
ed the Supreme Court to assume juris-
diction, which would mean bypassing the
appeals court.
Justice William Rehnquist took no part
in the high court's invitation to the
White House to respond to Jaworski's pe-
tition. No reason was given. His office
refused comment.
REHNQUIST ONCE served as an as-
sistant attorney general under former
Atty. Gen. John Mitchell, one of the
defendants in the Watergate cover-up
trial.
In the papers filed with the district
court, Jaworski asked for the full tape
recording of a conversation on Sept. 15,
1972, when Nixon met in his office with -
H. R. Haldeman, then White House chief
of staff, and John Dean, then presi-
dential counsel.
Part of the tape has been turned over
to the special Watergate grand jury.
Jaworski said yesterday in papers
filed with U. S. District Court that he
has evidence that the White House in-
structed the Internal Revenue Service to
audit or otherwise harass political ene-
mies, including Lawrence O'Brien, for-
mer chairman of the Democratic Na-
tional Committee.
Northern Ireland deals with strike
Residents heat water on a Primus stove at the Leopold Street Social Club in Belfast yesterday as the area went without
gas or electricity because of a general strike in Northern Ireland. The two-week old strike achieved a clear victory for
militant Protestants when when the six-month old coalition government announced its resignation yesterday. British offi-
cials called it Northern Ireland's worst crisis in its SO-year history, and British army and navy technicians were ready to
move in and take oMer power stations to avert a blackout.
Mayor fa vors sign control
through zoning commfission
By JEFF DAY 180 cases back to local courts, and un- forms of signs -- from the signs on1
the
Calling for a 'more realistic" ap-
proach to the regulation of billboards in
the city, Mayor James Stephenson said
yesterday he would favor zoning certain
local areas for billboards while outlaw-
ing them in others.
Such an approach, Stephenson claim-
ed, would allow the city's zoning com-
mission to control the size and location
of billboards.
STEPHENSON MADE the comments
in the wake of last Thursday's state Su-
preme Court ruling which struck down
parts of the city's existing billboard law
as too broad. The ordinance was aimed
at eliminating billboards and unsightly
signs from the city.
The court's decision referred nearly
less action like that suggested by Steph-
ensoA is taken, the move could herald
a new chapter in a court battle which
has already run five years.
"The initial ordinance went over-
board," Stephensaid yesterday. "We're
going to go at it from the zoning board,
using the zoning ordinance to regulate
the type of billboards we put up."
"WE HAVE been at this thing long
enough and expended more city re-
sources than are justified by what we
are trying to accomplish," Stephenson
said.
The original billboard ordinance was
passed in December 1966 on the urghig
of a committee working to revitalize the
downtown area.
But the bill as passed limited all
University Stadium to commercial real
estate signs. It was this broadness which
led the state Supreme Court to rule last
week that "in the guise of a regulation
the City Council of Ann Arbor has pro-
scribed billboards altogether."
A MINORITY opinion which favored
invalidating the entire ordinance held
that the law was "capricious and arbi-
trary."
Citing provisions in the ordinance
which outlawed barber poles because
they moved and the sign on the Pretzel
Bell because the line "Food for Gour-
mets," did more than merely identify
the business, the two dissenting judges
said the ordinance was an over-exten-
sion of the city's powers.