Word: jaworski
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...Jaworski rose to the moment in making his major point: "Now, the President may be right in how he reads the Constitution. But he may also be wrong. If he is wrong, who is to tell him so? This nation's constitutional form of government is in serious jeopardy if the President, any President, is to say that the Constitution means what he says it does, and that there is no one, not even the Supreme Court, to tell him otherwise...
Making his first appearance before the high court, St. Clair proved more assured and forceful than Jaworski. He folded his hands at ease on the lectern, waved his dark-rimmed glasses to emphasize an argument. Brilliantly maneuvering to make the best of a case that many constitutional experts consider untenable, he nevertheless was cornered by deft questioning into revealing the unreasonable limits of the President's privilege claims. Yet he repeatedly drove home his central theme: "The President is not above the law. Nor does he contend that he is. What he does contend is that as President...
Finally, appearing in rebuttal to complete Jaworski's case, his diminutive (5 ft. 6 in.) chief counsel, Philip Lacovara, 30, proved most professionally proficient of the three. Speaking quickly and precisely without notes, he rescued Jaworski from technical pitfalls and calmly challenged the Chief Justice on his interpretation of legal precedents. He urged the court not to shy away from a decision that might have profound political implications nor to shun its duty to decide a basic constitutional issue. He asked the Justices to "fully, explicitly, decisively?and definitively?uphold Judge Sirica's decision...
Lacovara's use of the term "definitively" was a subtle reminder that the President had once pledged to obey a "definitive" decision of the Supreme Court in the original tapes fight waged by Jaworski's predecessor Archibald Cox. After Nixon had Cox fired for seeking this evidence, the political furor that followed forced the President to drop his planned appeal to the Supreme Court. Instead he yielded to an appeals court ruling that he surrender the first group of recordings. At that time Nixon's constitutional consultant, Charles Alan Wright, assured Judge Sirica, "This President does not defy...
Though Nixon and his aides have pointedly refused to renew any such pledge this time, the Justices chose not to ask St. Clair pointblank whether Nixon would comply. St. Clair adroitly sidestepped whenever the question seemed imminent. Yet the subject became tantalizingly relevant when several Justices objected to Jaworski's charge that Nixon was setting himself up as the sole judge of the Constitution. As Justice Stewart said...