Subpoenas (Contd.)

While Sam Ervin's Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights met for a second week to hear testimony on possible legislation to protect newsmen's sources and notes, eleven more reporters and news executives were served with subpoenas demanding just such material. Attorneys for the Committee for the Re-Election of the

President subpoenaed representatives of four news organizations: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Star-News and TIME.

The subpoenas were all related to three civil suits arising from bugging of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate last June. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Lawrence F. O'Brien and Robert S. Strauss, the new chairman, are seeking $6.4 million in damages from former Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans, finance chairman of the re-election committee, and others, including the seven men who either pleaded guilty or were convicted on charges stemming from the Watergate affair. In return, Stans is suing O'Brien for $5,000,000 for libel and is asking $2.5 million for "abuse of process" (in effect claiming that the Democrats have filed their suits to harass him).

In pursuing Stans' countersuit, Lawyer Kenneth Wells Parkinson said that he served the subpoenas to learn about any libelous statements that Democrats may have made about Republicans during last year's presidential campaign. So broad was the information demanded by the subpoenas that Washington Post Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee commented: "They've asked for everything except the lint in our pockets."

Invasion. Included in the material demanded from TIME White House Correspondent Dean Fischer are "all documents, papers, letters, photographs, audio and video tapes" that deal with the June 17 break-in at the Watergate, and with the operations of anyone who dealt in espionage activities against the Democrats during the campaign. Also required are Fischer's "manuscripts, notes, tape recordings of communication" involving a vast array of people, including George McGovern, members of his campaign staff, the Washington metropolitan police department and members of the Democratic National Committee.

The sweep of the subpoenas brought a sharp retort from news executives. New York Times Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger said: "The Times will take all legal steps to have the subpoena quashed." Officials of TIME declared that such a sweeping subpoena is "an invasion" of Fischer's rights under the First Amendment. They explained that "While Time Inc.'s policy does not demand resistance to every subpoena of a newsman, the crucial factor here is that there has been no showing whatsoever that the documents and information demanded of Mr. Fischer are necessary to the resolution of the case. With the full assistance of Time Inc., Fischer will file a motion to quash the subpoena." The Washington Post said it, too, would oppose the subpoenas, while the Washington Star said its four subpoenaed reporters would answer but "will not violate the public's constitutional guarantee of a free press by revealing any privileged information."

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