The Law: Watergate Issues, 2 Must a President Testify?

Looming above the Watergate crisis is the possibility of President Nixon being summoned before some investigatory body to answer questions about his actions. No sooner was the matter broached late last month than a White House spokesman angrily declared that such summons would be rejected as "constitutionally inappropriate." Perhaps, but Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Wilson all agreed to appear before Senate groups to answer questions, and Senator Sam Ervin has wondered why such answers could not be compelled—at least in the proper circumstances. "If we were engaged in a war," he said,...