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.